Twitter is about to launch its own picture sharing service

There are already a few services Twitterers can use to quickly and easily share their daily snapshots but this one will operate within the walls of Twitter itself. It's apparently launching this week. Some of these other services like Twitpic and yfrog have taken a lot of heat lately because in the terms and conditions you agree to (without ever reading them), you sign away rights for that picture to that third party company. No big deal if it's a picture of your shoe, kind of a bigger deal if it's a newsworthy photo that you could get paid for. No word on how Twitter's service will work but that will be the wrinkle to watch for here. This also marks Twitter's further migration from an open platform to a closed service. Twitter has already said it won't approve new photo services to work within its API. It did the same thing with mobile phone services a while ago and has been pushing its own and acquiring competitors ever since.

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John Moe is the host of Marketplace Tech Report, where he provides an insightful overview of the latest tech news.